


two who left

by charcoalsuns



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, HQ Brofest Apprentice Tier, POV Alternating, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-24 06:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10736385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: "There were five 1st years who boycotted practice then. Of them, two quit the volleyball club entirely and now seem more lively than before. Which is the right choice? That probably depends on the person..."





	two who left

 

 

You are seven years old when you hold a volleyball for the first time.

Lighter, softer, larger than regulation size, you're told – all the better to learn with, all the easier to _not hold_ – with coarse stitching and padded cloth that blurs blue-orange-blue when your pass spins awry. You run after it, ears itchy warm, surrounded by your classmates' playground shouts and teases. But it's okay: after you hop back into place, after you toss the ball high over to your partner's bent, awkward arms and rock back on your heels to watch them try, too, you pay them back with ease.

There are holes in the floor where the net poles would go, you're told. Now, they're covered with silver rounds, flat and shiny, a little scratched from the ends of haphazard screwdrivers. Your school-issued gym shoes catch on the waxy gleam of the court, squeaking louder than chalk on a blackboard, carrying further than laughter from a swingset, and if you wanted— You could close your eyes to the silly sight of dropped, wayward volleyballs, and it would kind of sound like you're learning to dribble, instead.

The next time you have class, your teachers wheel out the basketballs. They turn you outdoors, across the rough, unmarked asphalt, and teach you to count to three a different way.

The warm stiffness in your skin vanishes from your forearms, reappearing with every odd _smack_ across the center of your right palm. Soon enough, you adjust to the weight of rebounds against your fingers, but because from _yuzu_ to _soda_ and from one color to another, you don't believe in choosing favorites, you hope you'll get to try those underhand passes again.

One of your classmates skims their knee pink and pebble-specked while you're learning how to run without holding the ball. They claim they were pushed, eyes wide as their friend's are narrow, and to yourself, with all the glee of a sticky hand reaching for a second popsicle, a second crayon, you think:

_Maybe if they'd been wearing kneepads – it wouldn't have hurt when they fell_.

 

 

 

 

 

You are fourteen years old when you hold a volleyball for the first time.

You hadn't tried it when you were in elementary school, nor during your past two years of middle school, but today, in search of something new and fun to do, your wandering, curious steps bring you to the open doors of a side gymnasium after classes have given way to clubs.

Peeking in from the entrance at the back of the court, you watch faces but try not to meet anyone's eyes; the others could only be your same age or younger, but they seem so _tall_ , so _capable_ , despite the wide stretch of a net that dwarfs them, despite the expanse of unguarded space between sidelines. They seem to know exactly what they're doing there.

One of them runs toward the net with their arms out behind, like they're going to speed right through it. When they squeak to a stop and spring upward instead, you can see their grinning teeth, the wild energy in their limbs. They shift, midair, and there's a ball before their hand, just as they swing their arm down to meet it – you didn't notice the sound of the touch that brought it to them, but this is the only thing you can hear now: a _crack_ that turns into a _thud_ , faster than the climax of a lightning storm.

The aftermath bounces toward you, spinning a little less with each quick, momentous strike against the floor.

Reflexively, you reach out to catch it. You blink in mild confusion when your palms come away dry.

You roll the ball back, easy, with care. The others raise their hands in thanks – in welcome, when you cross the threshold after it and step inside.

To yourself, as you bow a greeting toward a still-crackling grin, you wonder:

_Could I do that, too?_

 

 

 

 

 

You are fifteen when you stand in the middle of a line, sleeves rolled up on your new tracksuit, new gym shoes firm against this almost-familiar court, light and welcoming on the second afternoon of high school.

There are no holes in the floor; the net is set a little higher than what you're used to, pulled taut between its poles. Around the gymnasium, backboards and basketball hoops are folded toward the ceiling, out of the way, though they don't seem to be raised as far as they could be.

When it's your turn, you step forward; state your name, your middle school, your position – _libero_ – the word settles like a name tag on the front of your shirt, its backing just peeled off. You stand as tall as you can.

You've left accidental creases in your signup form, where it stuck out beyond the edges of your history textbook, unprotected. Your captain holds it in his hand with all the rest, careless as a formality; he makes eye contact with each of you as he nods at your introduction, and although a smile would seem foreign on his features, his voice – when he uses it – pitches low and inclusive, carrying his full attention, if only for a moment. Beneath his ink-black, half-zipped jacket, his shirt is different from the solid white and cream of the others' uniforms, fabric sleek as a sports ad and brighter than the curtains on either side of the stage. He stands toward the taller end of average height, looks stronger than you, definitely, at least, and while you've known him for less than half an hour and can't say for sure, he doesn't seem to yell, ever, at all.

Alongside everyone else, you follow him.

Five laps around the gym. Simple, routine stretches. A match between all the first years, just to see.

Since it's just the first day, your knees are unguarded, so you take care not to dive to the floor after the ball. No one calls you out on it; only calls of _nice course_ and _next time_ surround you, unwritten signs telling you that you belong.

You knew that you would – all of you are here to play, after all – but though you wouldn't admit it out loud, though you don't have anyone to admit it to, yet: there was a part of you that wanted to please. There is a part of you, spine straight, arms reaching, that wants to match the best.

When the clock reads _5:20_ , you're gathered by the doors. Before you and the rest of the first years can be told to start clearing up, for some reason, the second years ask if they can stay, and without pausing to question them in the slightest, your captain hands over a key.

_Aren't they tired?_ you ask a new clubmate later. _Volleyball's fun and all, but to play even longer_ …

A quiet huff to your other side, and a different one shrugs, his eyes a little out of focus in the basking afternoon.

_I'd like to stay_ , says another, stretching his arms over his head and rolling his shoulders, as if he's still just warming up. _Can't today, but tomorrow, if I can. If our senpai are going to stay, too_.

You split apart when you reach the school's main entrance, the seven of you, though you weren't really walking _together_ to begin with, and after throwing a casual wave back toward the others, you head off in search of dinner, or a snack to tide you over on the walk home.

You smile at the prospect, practice forgotten.

 

 

 

 

 

On your first day, you worried that you wouldn't measure up to the higher standards of high schoolers.

Or, not that you _wouldn't_ , because you knew you wouldn't, but that in turn, you wouldn't find a place within this flurry of movement to fit your own inexperience, your unhurried, lacking frame.

You still worry. You still snap to attention at the sound of an order like there's static shock in the damp cotton of your shirt, still think you don't know what you're doing here at all.

But in that unsteady place, you have a _place_ , after all, and it's enough for you to be in this gymnasium with its high standards and higher ceilings, if it means you can feel the echoes from someone else's storm. It's enough that you can stand in line, that on your turn, you have an open court to aim for.

The second year setter runs drills with you with a teasing, encouraging smile on his face. Your fellow first years are easy to run beside, to laugh with. In your captain, in other spikers from all sides of the net, you have plenty of strength to look up to. You're welcomed here, with your clumsy limbs and fledgling skill, and you get changed into and out again of practice clothes just like theirs with a lightness in your chest, simple as sunshine through windows, opening further up the walls than you can reach.

At the end of most days, your muscles stretch warm and worn. You think back on the wings unfurling gradually from your shoulder blades, from the knots in your shoelaces; you recall the way you've been landing hits more often than misses, of late. The sound of the burn against your hand is one you can never seem to remember as well as immediately after the strike itself, and so, you find, you will never tire of chasing for another one.

 

 

 

 

 

Practice isn't ending anytime soon, and as though he lives off the fumes of your grimaces, he won't let you forget it.

His voice barks out, strikes like a staff at your heels, _come on, you call that trying, get up, again, again, until you get this right_.

_Easy for him to say_ , you think, dragging yourself up from your defeated sprawl, _Easy for him to keep sending us diving across the floor, when he stands there on that flimsy platform so he clears the net without having to jump_.

You hide your curses between your ragged breaths, spin your once-rational thoughts into self-righteous resentment. You can well see the wires and sinews holding his skeleton together, the experience ingrained in his every movement, every order, every glare – you know there is nothing _flimsy_ about the strength he wields like a general above the court, you know you should be humbled by him, but all you gather from his command is a pointless, endless stream; a leak, pungent as sage. He could take five of you out in fewer minutes, with only his solid frame and a cart stacked with volleyballs. If he doesn't, it isn't due to any skill or evasion on your part, nor any pity on his; he is too much in control for that, putting you through more paces than you both know you're capable of, _because_ he knows you're not capable of them.

You fail. You fall.

Through the kneepads you wear like counterfeit armor over your soft, gullible knees, the floor scrapes and hammers into your bones.

It hurts.

No one is laughing, now. The room is a swelter, weighing down the fabric of your shirt like a cage around your lungs. With nothing but dry grit in your mouth, you try to wash the bitterness, the leafy rot from your tongue. _Sage_. Against the most fundamental piece of advice, your water bottle lies a court's length away, fallen on its side, probably empty. You don't remember, and you won't get to break until you somehow get enough consecutive receives up in the air proper.

When he arrived, before he began as your coach, he had asked all of you what you wanted. You'd glanced at each other, shifting sparks and shrugs and tentative, dream-happy nods, and came to a consensus; you'd told him: we want to play in tournaments, and we want to win, we want to go to nationals and win there, too.

You hang your head, let the sweat drip into your eyes.

_This isn't what I signed up for_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You haven't hit a spike easily for five days. One more will make no difference, and you don't give it another chance. Before you can think too hard about it, you walk the long way from the shoe lockers to the street after school; keep your head down, furtive, flighty, like someone you know will recognize you and call out, will shatter your illusion of being on your own.

Around a corner, you think you see a clubmate, thumbs tucked beneath his backpack straps, scuffing up the dust as he ambles toward the gates, in the opposite direction from the second gymnasium.

You pause. You didn't know anyone else was planning not to go. What if it's more than the two of you, leaving your places, trying not to look back behind yourselves as you walk away?

Still, you reassure, smoothing over your moment of doubt, no hard loss; the club might not be full, but neither is it short on members, and they'll surely be fine without you.

_They'll_ be fine, but you—

You drop your shoulders, raise your chin to the blinding, stifling sky. Without any walls or windows to block the direct light, your skin burns from no exertion on your part at all.

Your chest feels heavy. Your eyelids glow orange where they close against the sun, and to yourself, you sigh: _well, it's all right. I was never that good, anyway_.

 

 

 

 

 

You leave your shoes behind again, untied and gaping where you dropped them two days ago at the foot of your bed, next to the history text you abandoned first as a reading, second as a pillow, when you finally clawed your aching body from the floor to pull the curtains down over too-dim streetlights.

You can't be allowed into the gym without proper footwear, at the very least.

No one will be pleased with your absence, this much you can tell, but it's just one more day. Surely, you can be allowed to rest. After all, you forgot your shoes at home.

As you shove your heels into place at the front door, as your lightened bag swings beside your thigh, your heart trips over itself, loud in your throat as if it wants to give you away. You wave goodbye to your parents; answer with a reckless _yes_ when they ask, glancing up from their respective news, if you'll be getting back after practice as usual.

But despite the skip, _is it relief, is it guilt_ , preemptive in your chest, despite the shoes in your room, despite the box of soda-flavored ice pops waiting, unrewarded, in the freezer – a habit is still just that; it is hard to break. You wonder whether your nod will turn out to be a lie at all.

 

 

 

 

 

A week passes, and six practices later, you avoid your seventh.

The wonder in the back of your mind has fallen silent, still as the empty rooms of the house around you. It's been a while since the game felt _fun_ , a while since you felt _welcome, open to all experience levels_ , a while since you were happy to be short of breath, since you smiled, satisfied, at the hot stretch in your limbs.

_You have to be good, in order to have fun_ , he told you, drill after drill after drill, and maybe, in a way, he had a point. If tournaments were _fun_ , if official matches before chattering, vicarious spectators were your personal destination, he had a point. If you were invested in this sport, like those who were _good_ , if you were striving to compete on the same level as those with certificates and scholarships signed in their name— he had a point.

You push aside the reminder that invades your rationalizations, that tells you _no one_ in that gymnasium is there to earn a scholarship.

You could be good, too, maybe, if you practiced with them. If you really meant it.

But all you'd ever wanted to do was enjoy yourself, to spend afternoons with people who simply enjoyed the game, too, and in the silence at the back of your mind, you begin to understand. You might be a step, two years, ten behind, and that didn't mean you couldn't learn to keep the ball in play; it doesn't mean you can't still become good enough to keep the game going. It's just that there, with that group, with that club full of people trying to become a team, to play is to work, and every result is more likely to count against you than for. There, enjoyment has no place without wins to show for it.

You're not a winner. You're not willing to endure whatever downpour it takes to sink your teeth in ultimate victory, when you can't imagine it tasting any happier than the grin on your lips as a strike ends a rally.

You understand. The fact that you _accept_ your place, the fact that you don't feel the need to fight your way higher, to give chase for a brighter stage – that's where you step away, and where others continue.

You walk into the kitchen, blink at the sun where it peeks through overcast clouds, high through the window above the sink. You grip the handle of the water jug and heft it from the fridge as filtered air condenses on its glass sides. Droplets run downward, leaving a quiet puddle on the table, clear, cool against your fingertips. There's no one around to order you to mop it dry.

You drink a full glass, soothing after your walk home, and pour yourself another, placing it to one side of the table as you sit, legs folded like a stretch, with your schoolbag open at your bare knee. The heaviness is gone from your chest.

Beneath the hum of the air-con, your breaths rise and fall in peace.

 

 

 

 

 

You've let your guard down, you think, as you stand with your shoulder to the stairwell wall, frozen on the bottom step that will lead you through the school's front doors. You lean forward as little as you can afford, surprise beating hollow between your ribs, holding onto the strap of your backpack like the sparse pressure on your thumb could lend you strength.

Down the hall, they're still there.

Two of your clubmates – former clubmates? you're not sure – imprisoning the arms of another, catching his bag and ankle to drag him back when he tries to get away. From what you see, while your breaths sound lighter than they feel in your throat, he's putting up a good fight, refusing to let go of the edge of a classroom door. Their voices overlap, loud, messy, carrying through the post-class chatter around you all, and though you can't make out exactly what the three of them are saying, you watch the strain in their arms as they hang on for what seems to be dear life; you can judge by the looks on their faces, and you can guess. _Come back_ , they say. _No_ , you agree.

You hold onto an inhale, duck your head in a new kind of defense, and step around the corner. You strain your ears for a break in their scuffle, a shout of indignation directed at you, too.

The only pause is the space between your footsteps, walking past them.

They don't see you.

Or, you realize, not letting yourself turn your head to check – they aren't looking.

 

 

 

 

 

You didn't know what to expect when you handed in your resignation form, thought that perhaps the faculty advisor would try convincing you otherwise.

In hindsight, though, you didn't see him all that often when you were at practice. If he did stop by, it wasn't to advise you, but usually to remind you that the club's allotted gym time was nearing its end. Here, with a morning mug and a stack of ungraded papers on his desk, he seems even less affected than you, only nodding and accepting your filled-out page before he wishes you well in anything you might pursue instead.

You don't tell him you're not really planning to do so. Not just yet, if at all.  

A few hours later, you get a slightly different reaction, when you hear your name called from the hallway during lunch break. You weren't expecting to hear that voice again, and it is with no small amount of hesitation that you heed its subtle, pleasant command.

He's only a year older than you, only his second year in the first term of school. He'll probably be captain of the team next year. You wonder if that's why he's here in the first years' hallway – if _he_ wants to try convincing you otherwise, to secure as many members as he can, if he can.

As it turns out, it isn't.

_He collapsed_ , he tells you, but that's not it, either. _I'm not here to convince you to change your mind_. You think the fact that he's here at all says differently. You keep that to yourself.

_I would like if you reconsidered,_ he admits, _but it's your decision. I wouldn't think any differently of you if you chose to come back, and I don't think anyone else would, either. We all want to play. Anyone who does, too, anyone who is willing— is welcome_.

He doesn't say, _We need you_.

It frees you.

Do you want to play? You do. You remember the sound of the burn against your hand like a phantom welt, a scar that you can't see anymore; smoothed-over skin on your shoulder blades that you can't help but to run your fingertips across. You remember, clearer in memory than presence, the rush of energy, the pure fun of the game.

But to play is to work, stringent coach or no, and you aren't the kind of player they need. You might change, with more time spent among them, but you are thinking of yourself even as you're thinking of them, and you don't want to step back in.

You don't doubt that you _would_ be welcome. You don't doubt that they would welcome you. Only, it isn't their acceptance that you seek; it's your own.

You shake your head, bow an apology toward a still-hopeful face.

_Sorry_ , you say.

_I couldn't_.

 

 

 

 

 

You alternate your fingers against each other, clammy, clasped together with your wrists at your belt buckle, too tight for the stuffy heat that all the open windows in the school do nothing to counteract.

You want to straighten your spine, but your posturing has fled.

It's lunchtime, and facing you as if you're an equal is the second year who makes receives with fluid movements that run practically opposite to their solid, stable conclusions. You might have been captivated, might have admired; just as you were toward another first year, the libero whose yells fall silent when he concentrates. Now, though—

Now, nothing has really changed. As stifling as the humidity that entrenches the entire world, their genuine, unconditional prowess presses in against your dreams.

Now, you fish for the tag in the trash, push past discarded papers that should have included your signup form – you should return the declaration you printed so brazenly on the front of your shirt.

You might be a little ashamed.

His tone is gentle and kind as he looks you in the eye, though you can see sweat already glinting across the disappointed creases between his eyebrows, and you would be a fool not to know how much the club means to him, how much discomfort he's willing to endure if it means reaching each higher stage.

Even more of a fool than you are now, maybe, listening to him, of all people, as he tells you he _would like if you reconsidered;_ and nodding, guilt scattered through your retreat, as he says _there's a form you'll have to submit to the faculty advisor, though, if you choose not to return to the club_. He does a good job of concealing what he wants from you, is what you think he'd like you to think, just that he'd like you to reverse your noncommittal, spineless resignation.

This, you believe, after you nod a respectful goodbye, is not something you can reverse. Not to indulge the vague, restless itch in your hands, your thighs; not to obey the bellowing, endless demand of your mind, your core. You are nothing, compared to them.

You turn your former _senpai_ 's words over, idle, like you'd spin a volleyball between your palms. You let them fall to the ground. It'll be good, you decide, at last, to commit to leaving – to sign a slip for an alibi and stop stepping around eggshells every day like you're still trying to make your escape.

It'll be good to know for sure that you're not going back.

 

 

 

 

 

Some things haven't changed. You still see a few of your former clubmates around school – they're hard to miss, two of them, grins as ready as shouts as loud as their footsteps side-by-side down the halls; another is in your class. You start in on your bento as he turns, in no rush, to the bag on the back of his chair to unpack his own. With this proximity intact, he's the only one you really talk to, now, though not as much as you used to.

His smile is even quieter than you remember as he scrubs a hand across the back of his head, as he tells you that he had quit, too, actually. You aren't sure what to say to that, but you find it isn't difficult to meet his eyes, even when you know he hasn't quit for good, like you.

_Why'd you go back?_ you ask him, and remember what you were told. _Was it because you heard that_ …

You can't bring yourself to finish the question, thinking it belittles, and you will never stand in any place to do that.

He hears it, though, and looks sheepish as he ducks his head, eyes shifting away like his focus wants to take flight. _No_ , he says, _and… to be honest, I'm not sure if I could have gone back if I had known beforehand_. He pauses for a little while, thinking things over. You're reminded of the way he watched the other club members play, the way he listens to every lesson with a steady hand over the relevant workbook pages. _Maybe I would have. I'd all but geared up to get through his toughest practices, when I realized I missed playing too much to keep staying away. Maybe I'd have been only as embarrassed as I am now_.

Seeing his tiny shrug, you wonder at his admission, at the blushing, unhidden truthfulness of it. To yourself, you think: there are different kinds of acceptance.

_I'm willing to work harder_ , he says, _if that's what it means to play on this team._

You've got a mouthful of rice, salty-sweet-savory, though it isn't that discrepancy which gives you pause in response. But it's all right. He isn't waiting for you.

_Still_ , you note, _you look kind of happy about it_.

He blinks, as if you've caught him on an offbeat; grins, alight and momentary, without missing the next.

_I guess I am_ , he says. _Are you?_

You test the weight of the thought on your tongue, let it lead a rhythm of its own, down crowded halls and fleeting stairs and unhurried sunlit paths away, home. It settles at the table in your family's living room, a glass of water as cool as air beside.

You tug it back, for now, and the knowledge of what awaits you when the final bell dismisses you from school occupies the empty space behind your shoulders.

_Yeah_ , you think aloud, _I am, too_.

 

 

 

 

 

You go back to basketball during second term. Those of your new clubmates who you recognize from class welcome you with easy, laughing grins; with shifted spaces by the windows where you put your water bottle out beside theirs; with grimaces during rest breaks, as you recount the hell that pushed you away, the weeks of inactivity that left you restless in your room and pushed you here.

This half of this gymnasium feels the same as any other in the summer heat – an orderly cacophony, muffled by the sound of plodding footfalls and the humid weight of exertion. Still, it is the opposite of stifling. Your upperclassmen toss jokes toward each other to lighten the air; toward you, too, when you show them how much you lack in training, then as they take turns taking you under their wings, showing you how to pass and pivot and push on. The faculty advisor here sits off the courts with student papers to look over, red pen in hand and a whistle around his neck, ready as a shout when practice dissolves too much to justify the shared gym space.

You keep your spine upright instead of bent toward the floor, and let new drills immerse you. You might forget about running away if you keep yourself moving through the retreat.

There's a mean-looking second year who wears a wide, goofy smile when he's surprised into it, who looms over almost all of the third years and intimidates the badminton players on the other half of the gym. He carries himself through a form that begins with a solid planting of his feet, and ends just as decisively with an upward tick of the scoreboard. From the sidelines of a practice game – intra-team, here as well – your attention is held by the way the rest of the court reacts to his movements, it seems, rather than the other way around.

You can't quite keep still, after that. Your occasional weekend hours whiled away beneath your backyard basketball hoop are nothing, compared to the hours he's spent daily, picking up techniques like earthen curiosities and shaping them into his own.

Part of you hasn't changed: for every reprieve you're granted from frustration now, you catch your breath to filter out the gasps; you replenish, and go back out to give it another go, to pull a slight nod of encouragement from your betters, to slap the outstretched hands of your peers. Part of you still wants to match the best your vicinity has to offer.

It's not that it's _easier_ here, you repeat in the back of your mind. You wonder if the mantra is a lie.

But what, then, if it is?

Sometimes, between this half of this gymnasium and those halves of the one not a hundred meters away, the difference nearly resolves itself into an outline you can point to. Most of the time, you can't tell at all what changes to consider.

It _feels_ easier here.

And despite the weight you do your best to outrun, despite the possibility that any situation would be a relief, after that, really – you find no fault in this.

 

 

 

 

 

You are sixteen years old when you find yourself stranded at a bus stop in the rain.

Wednesday afternoon swells full above you, around you, daylight piled high between a thousand overlapping clouds. When lightning flashes, an echoing crash follows not three seconds later, and as you wait out the aftermath with your hands at rest in your pockets, you recall a lesson from a science class years before: the smaller the delay, the closer the storm.

You can't remember if there was anything about the relative _size_ of it all – whether it's just in your head, the way the pouring rain comes with HD surround sound, and an image both clearer than glass and as unbelievable as reality. You are dry, relatively, standing huddled beneath a nearby shop's overhang. Inches from your nose, a river falls from the sky.

There aren't many cars out on the roads today, which could mean the bus might meet less traffic to navigate, but the few cars that do pass by are slow, careful enough that you accept you'll likely be here waiting for a while more.

Beneath the downward rush and the short, cool winds that fling summer storm across your cheeks, storefronts cast their light like charms into the din. Aside from you, no one's outside; aside from outside, there's only one other sort of place to be. A young child doodles diligently in the fog of the dry cleaner's front window, a damp fluffball of a dog nosing their arm from the seat at their side. A few stores away, the door to the bakery swings open, bell beneath the storm, only audible in your expectation of it, and the person who stands awkwardly with half their body still inside has a soft smile on their face as they tussle with an umbrella and three hands' worth of carry-outs.

You take your time in waiting, and take in all the sounds you can as they come. After all, for your ease and your tendency toward going with the flow, you know what you're doing here, too.

There's another series of flashes above you, around you. They light up the sky so that if you looked fast enough, you could count the shadows, the cracks between individual clouds; on cue, thunder, even faster than that.

The storm is right here with you.

 

 

 

 

 

It is easier, when you no longer lie to yourself. You wanted camaraderie without commitment. You wanted to win without knowing what it meant to work for it. You wanted recognition for going through only the most manageable order of requisites.

It isn't that what you find yourself doing is insincere, in itself. But what you needed to realize, what it's taken you this long to start to understand, is that there is only so far your intentions can take you if you cave at any challenge too great to pass in one go. There's no fault in wanting to enjoy the time you put into this, if you acknowledge the boundary it reveals between you and those who want something differently.

It isn't an insurmountable boundary; the area it crosses is divided like surface and shadow, only as distinct as the light you see it in. You are free to set your course over it at any time.

But to weave back and forth on your whim, to pretend beyond what you're willing to try, to run away and forget how all of it was by your choice – that isn't fair to yourself, or to those you would have yourself stand beside. You wanted to match the best. First, you think, you should learn from them. Perhaps you should aim for your own best, instead.

You sit back on your heels, waxed floor pressing cool against your shins, and turn a screwdriver between your fingertips, smoothing out the metal cap over the hole on the unused sideline. There's a patch of reddened skin on your knee where you caught yourself as you fell, a warmth in your palm where a friend helped you up as they laughed. Little by little, you're getting better at playing.

The gymnasium is still a bit quiet for your liking, this soon after the day's classes have ended, but through the open doors and the uncovered screens there are voices carrying on, and you have a bone to pick with a clubmate about an hours-long movie that really didn't live up to his recommendation.

You hope you'll get sorted into opposing teams at practice today, just for the chance to show him up a little. Also, you've been working on your part of one of the team's plays, and if the chance comes together, you want to run it through.

This gymnasium is quieter in some ways.

It is an easy sort of quiet, and you are glad for it.

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually, the storm passes overhead, leaving small rumbles like the afterthoughts of someone's stomach and patches of sun like someone's tugged the cloud cover apart.

People have come and gone through the doors all down the street. The fog is gone from the window of the dry cleaner's; there's a cheery chalk signboard on the pavement outside the bakery you want to visit, another day.

In a store across the street, an apron hangs on a hook behind the counter. Its owner stretches, straightens the boxes on their shelves, and pulls out a phone to check the time, even though a clock hangs on the wall above the vacuums, even though there's rather likely another entire shelf of clocks on display besides.

You've stepped out from beneath the overhang, and stand now a few paces from the curb with an ensconced schedule for company. You wipe your palms, damp from the rain; reach among folded napkins and knotted melonpan wrappers for your pass. In time, you catch sight of the next bus – a welcome sight, another small, satisfying wonder.

 

 

 

 

 

You are sixteen and growing, and your hand stills around your payment when you catch sight of a poster beside the grocery register.

With it, a slideshow flashes through your mind, unbidden, an instinct you hadn't realized you possessed. You have no names for any of the emotions that well up inside you, overlapping until they might as well be one emotion altogether.

Is it pride, is it humility, beating in your chest? Though he must attend your school, you don't recognize the person whose leap fills the foreground. But you couldn't mistake that court from the corner of your eye, and you can't blink it away as you look straight at it now. A daydream, printed onto paper as reflective as a gymnasium floor; a daydream you once shared with the people who are willing— who are making it real, under their own power.

It's the latter.

You leave your change in the donation box beneath their best, yet to come, and flip open your wallet to give a little more. The person at the register thanks you with a smile; likewise, your nod is for them, too.

Behind you, the doors slide themselves shut, blocking off the aircon you kind of wish you could take with you. A single serving of yuzu ice cream swings at your side in a reusable bag, and you bring up your other hand as you walk home, protecting your eyes from the sun that stays a thousand paths, that provides shadows to hide in, but not forever, and not for good.

 

 


End file.
